A microRNA (miR) is a noncoding small RNA that contains 17-25 nucleotides. A miR can post-transcriptionally regulate the expression of several target genes through directly binding to their 3′ untranslational regions (3′UTR). The annealing of the miR to the mRNA then inhibits protein translation, but sometimes facilitates cleavage of the mRNA. Through regulation of a miR's target genes, miRs have been suggested to play a role in the development of cancer carcinogenesis, progression and recurrence. Although miR attracted a great deal of attentions in the biomedicine field in the past few years, most of their functions in disease progress are yet to be confirmed.
Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers and has a very high recurrence and mortality rate. Effectively distinguish patients with poor prognosis will be helpful for patients follow-up and treatment. At present, there is no ideal biomarker to reliably predict the colorectal cancer recurrence.
U.S. application Ser. No. 12/398,852, hereby incorporated by reference, discloses methods and compositions for identifying a miRNA (miR) profile for a particular condition, such as colorectal cancer, and using the profile in the diagnosis and/or prognosis of a patient for a condition, such as colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer recurrence or response to therapy. The U.S. application Ser. No. 12/398,852 used the hybridization method in the microarray for large-scale screening. Nevertheless, the microarray data from the hybridization experiments is subject to false positive results. It is desirable that more reliable methods and more functional studies should be identified to validate the relation between miR and colorectal cancer recurrence.
It is always desirable to search for a better or other alternative method for anti-tumorigenesis and anti-recurrence. The present invention addresses the need by disclosing a method of anti-colorectal cancer or anti-colorectal cancer recurrence, a method for screening an anti-colorectal cancer agent and a method of determining the prognosis of a subject with colorectal cancer.